Boston Computer Society - Sinclair Timex User Group Newsletter

OOOOThe Boston Computer Society

SINCLAIR-TIMEX USER GROUP NEWSLETTER

Volume 2, Issue 12 December 1983

COMPUTER

EDUCATION:

F- O LJ FU ESSENTIAL

ELEMENTS

by Greg Coffin

Out of the kaleidoscope of
mi crocomputers in schools, one
fact comes into focus — a
successful education program
requires four essentials:

1. An enthusiastic,
knowledgeable teacher:

2. Llear, logical, well written
teaching material, that is,
units and lesson plans;

3. High quality software and
documentation designed or
adapted for the grade level at
which it is being used;

4. Hardware capable of achieving
the specified objectives.

These elements are listed
deliberately in descending order
of importance. Contrar y to some
opinions about sel f — 1 earni ng on
the computer, the teacher is the
essential element. Some ch i 1 dr en
given sufficient time on the

LITERACY page 6

m leu £*_

DECEMBER GROUP MEETING

Wednesday, December 14, 1983
7:00 p . m.

Small Science Auditorium
UMass Harbor Campus
(Directions inside)

NOVEMBER
M I GHL I GUTS

With Will Stackman moderating,
the meeting began with a few
words from Cliff Danielson and
Jack Hodgson about the
newsl et ter . Jack once again
i nvi ted al 1 comers to get
involved with all aspects of
creating this publication.

John Kemeny spoke briefly about
the TS/2X T-shirts he's selling,
these designer shirts with their
distinctive "Don’t judge a
computer by its keyboard" emblem
on the front are still
available. Over 2 dozen are
left of all sizes except small.
Contact John at the meetings or
by mail at 284 Great Road, Apt.
D5, Acton, MA 01720.

Sue Mahoney made a few comments
about the October Celebration

HIGHLIGHTS page 10

1 O REM

Well, another month ancthe:-
nswslstter . As you can see this
month's issue cintains more art
'pictures and graphics) than
last month. This new mix ct
text and art is what we're gonna
shoot for from now on.

Sales of the new Timex Color
Computer (TS206S) seem to De
good. Although retailers are
only able to get a small number
of machines they seem to sell
them all as quick as they get
them. Most retailers seem to be
enthusiastic about the computer
and are trying to reorder in
time for Christmas.

According to Popular Science
Magazine, Sinclair's flat screen
TV has recently been introduced
in Great Britain. The set ,
which has a black and white
screen measuring A 1/A by 1 3/4
inches, sells in 68 for the
equi vi lent of $120. Sir Clive (
Sir Uncle Clive? Uncle Sir
Clive?) says that it could sell
for n wel 1 under $100M when it's
introduced in the U.S. in 1984.

Our hearts go out to Charles
Warner or Games To Learn By (one
of the few New England retailers
carrying the TS2068 sc far) who.
on the occasion of our last user
group meeting, spent the entire
evening roaming the halls of
UMASS looking for us. He
evidently passed by our door
more than once while we were ir
there but never managed to look
in at the right times. He mav
try again in December. Good
Luck Char 1 es .

A new item this month is a
column called POINTERS. This
monthly feature will be a
question and answer forum tc
deal with the problems of the
beginning computer user. I f vcl

now of something that ought to
be covered or have a a problem
•/OLt’d like explained don't
hesitate to contact Mr. Diamond
or myself at the meeting or
write.

* vs been getting some good
response from the members
concerning more par t i c i pat 1 on in
this newsletter. This is good
but don t stop now. The more
input (sorry) contributions we
get the better. Keep it up. (
^'-*st to let you know how serious
this subject is: the BCE's Atari
User's Group just discontinued
its newsletter because of group
apathy. )

We are currently in the process
of selecting articles from the
past year to appear in a "Best
of the Sinclair Time;

Newsletter". The "Best of..."
will contain things such as Dave
Wood’s Hex Assembler, the
routine to emulate the READ-DATA
-RESTORE commands of other
BASICS and other items of
continuing interest. If you have
any favorites from the past
issues that you'd like to see
included let me know. Watch for
this "Best of..." collection in
the Spring (maybe late winter).

A f i nal note:

The possibly fatal flaw of the
"electronic office" is that voi
can never find a pencil when you
need one.

The Sinclair Timex User Group

O Boston

□

s

This newsletter is produced to
in-form group members o-f the
agenda and logistics o-f future
meetings, as well as to recap
and amplify the information
provided at the meetings. It
also provides a forum for
members and interested parties
to communicate what thay have
learned or developed relating to
Si ncl ai r and Timex computing .
Meetings are open to the public
(non-member admission is *3);
however attendees are encouraged
to join the Boston Computer
Society (BCS) This newsletter
is free to members. Back issues
are one dollar each.

Sue Mahoney
Di rector
c/o BCS Office
or 203-755—2699

Jack Hodgson
Publ isher /Editor
P.0. Box 526
Cambridge, MA 02238
617-354-7899

John Kemeny

User Group Correspondent
284 Great Road, Apt. D5
Acton, MA 01720

Beth Elliot

Group Librarian

c/o Sinclair Research

50 Staniford Street

Boston, MA 02114

617-742-4826

Al lan Cohen
Meeting Coordinator
617-961-3453

DIRECTIONS TO MEETING* The S-T
User Group meets in the Large
Science Auditiorium (Room 8/2/
009) of the University of
Massachusetts, Boston Harbor
Campus. It is located only 3
miles from downtown Boston and
easily accessible by public and
private transportation. From
the north or west, take the
Southeast Expressway to Exit 17.

Turn left onto Columbia Road.
Follow construction signs to get
to Morrissey Boulevard in the
direction of UMASS and the
Kennedy Library. Bear right on
traffic island, get in the right
two lanes, following UMass/
Boston signs. Turn left at the
light into Campus. From the
south, take Morrissey Boulevard
northward to the campus. On the
MBTA, take the Red Line (Ashmont
Train) to Columbia Station.
Transfer to the free University
shuttlebus in the T parking lot.

Jeff Parker

Advertising Manager
c/o P0 Box 526
Cambridge, MA 02238
617-354-7899

The Sinclair Timex Newsletter is
publ i shed monthly by the
Si ncl ai r Timex User Group of the
Boston Computer Society.
Membership in the BCS is 424 per
year which includes a
subscription to its magazine
"The Computer Updata" and
subscription to two of its group
newsletters (such as this one) .

Advertising space is available
in this publication on a
limited, first come first served
basis. The rate is 460 per
quarter page. At this time no
other ad sizes are available.

For detailed rate and discount
information contact the
Advertising Manager or the
Publ i sher .

Tiny Logo

by Will Stackman

LOGO, a procedural language
based on the "artificial
intelligence" language LISP,
used at MIT, has gained
considerable acceptance as a way
of teaching the concept of
computer programming to young
children. Its value may be over
-stated by teachers who prefer
demonstrati ng its graphic
capabilities to dealing with the
1 ess-i nter esti ng and more
cumbersome details of BASIC.

Tiny LOGO, as currentl y
available for the TS1000/1500,
is a subset of an early
implementation of the larger
language which emphasizes its
"turtle" graphic elements. As a
16K program even a limited LOGO
might offer a chance for its use
in settings where expensi ove
computing is not available.

This version is, however, too
limited to be of much use.

Tiny LOGO is written entirely in
BASIC, and its listing reveals
several ingenious programming
methods. The resulting
language, which might be
labelled a LOGO simulation, is
very slow and jumpy, due to the
use of the FAST mode for
computation and SLOW for
plotting. At 40+ * 60+ , the
Sinclair BASIC plotting screen
is too course to draw attractive
or even accurate geometric
designs, thus thwarting the
major allure of LOGO. The same
program, using a Hi -Res plot on
the 2068 would be a lot more
attractive, though still too
si ow.

This implementation needs
pruning plus a number of machine
code routines to handle its
display before it will become
more than a curiosity. Tiny
LOGO could be used, with a

little practice, to give
demonstrations of LOGO and its
procedural principals, as long
as designs were chosen
carefully. It is possible to
BREAK into BASIC by entering a
bad command and use COPY to get
a printout of the screen. Then

the program is recovered by
entering LET DEPTH = 0 and GOTO
400. Removal of over length
variable names like DEPTH plus a
host of REM' s would reduce this
listing by 500 bytes.

Fans of BASIC programming will
appreciate the way string
slicing is used to handle
commands. Those who dislike
error messages will want to
devise more error checking
within the program. Its
propensity to crash, coupled
with its ugly display make it
virtually useless with young
children, though a fifth grade

hacker, pining for an Apple,
would probably find it a
challenge. There are no text or
list handling facilities to
speak of.

All three copies available were
hard to load. The tape headers
were noisy and the levels
uneven. The docufnentati on is
minimal, but sufficient if you

have a nodding aquaintance with
LOGO or another procedural
language. Most LOGO books are
specific to particular
implemenations, but might prove
helpful. We are still waiting
for a LOGO, especially the less
gr aphi c elements, which properly
implemented might prove useful
for word processing and other
text manipulations.

Available from GLADSTONE
tLEC i RONICS, Buffalo. Current
list $14. 95. Released by
International Software &

Publ ishing.

VP ROSS RELEASED

BY TIMEX

Dec. 5 — Dan Ross, Timex
Marketing Vice President and
national spokesman for the Timex
Sinclair Computer line, was
released from his post late last
week. Ross, a longtime veteran
of the computer industry, was
said to be surprised and shaken
by the sudden action.

Unof f i ci al sources wi thin Timex
say that Ross will remain with
the company for the next two
months as a consultant and that
this move is part of yet another
structural reshuffling of this
international company’s computer
operation.

LITERACY

continued

machine and suitable software,
can learn by themselves; but
most children need guidance.'

the level of

4* ,

regardless o-f
intensity, i *f
achieve their
The teacher

they are to
maximum potential

- - must be

knowl edgabl e about the sub ,ect
matter. They need not be a
computer scientist, a
programmer, or a computer
linguist to teach fifth-graders
how a computer works. But they
do hav* to know how fifth-
graders learn — and more about
how computers work than what
~h®y plan to teach their class.

To be effective, teachers must
-e enthusi satic, especially
about their particular subject
matter. A computer, however,
needs an additional dimension:
enough enthusiasm to motivate
-hem to read as much as is
needed to stay abreast of new
developments in this burgeoning
field. The teacher must be

aware of the best sources of
information and have regular
access to them in order to keep
pace with rapidly changing
developments. Much could be
written about the requirements
for effective teaching; my point
here is simply that the teacher
is and will remain the most
important element in the four-
part mi;:.

The second element is teaching
material, prepared by whoever is
going to use it. Styles are
highly individual; as Gilbert
Highet said long ago, "Teaching
is an art, not a science." Of
course the teacher must be
familiar with and possess a wide
range of published material;
this is an essential tool of the
trade. However . having decided
upon objectives, the teacher
must personally develop the

Judy Field, teacher at Timilty Middle
School in Boston demonstrating the
’"SI 500 to students from her schools.

units and daily lesson plans
necessary to achieve them.

After this has been done, the
teacher's own material can be
revised, updated, and edited and
material from others can be
borrowed or adapted. Over time
a substantial reservoir of
personal resources will be
accumulated. And, just as the
teachers themselves are
different , the resources they
select will be different.

The third ingredient for
effective computer teaching is
quality software. Teachers must
learn how to judge software;
they must know what is on the
market at any given time and how
and where to preview it to see
if it meets their specific
needs. Reading software reviews
most of which are biased to
some degree — is not enough.
Risking 49.95 for a Time::
Sinclair tape may not seem too
bad compared with 495.95 for an
Apple disk. But the 49.95's can
add up fast when one considers
the flood of materials coming on
the market weekly1
Unfortunately, although the
programs represent effort on the
part of the programmer, most of

them are " junk, " at least for
serious educational
applications. "Buyer beware" is
■a slogan, and, if possible,
teachers should try out the
software before purchasing it.
This applies to documentation as
well, for rewriting
documentation can be a long,
laborious process.

The final significant element of

The author and associate Maria Trczz:
sneaking with Cliff and Carol Danielson
and their children Cora and filar..

a computer education program is
hardware. A popular entertainer
would have you believe that the
brand name of the computer is
the primary consideration, when,
in fact, the situation is
analogous to selecting an
automobile. You can get from
Boston to New York in a
Volkswagen or a Cadillac in the
same amount of time. On#
provides more creature comfort,
but you pay for it. The same is
true of microcomputers. Every
microcomputer has its fan club
whose members can recite a
litany of reasons in praise of
their f avori te. But the over —
riding question should bet What
do I want to accomplish with
this teaching tool? If the
answer is relatively simple and
unsophisticated, then the
machine should match it. You
cion t NEED a Cadillac to go from
New York to Boston!

Of the four elements essential
to a computer education program,
the teacher is the most
important by far. Don't let
Madison Ave. deceive you, !

COMPUTER LITERACY I O ** HIT
^ r T I MEX SINCLAIR CELEBRATION

Greg Coffin and his staff were present at our group’s October Birthday
Celebration with one of the most popular exhibits there.

Throughout the day the Dartmouth/Exeter Rooms were the scene of ongoing
demonstrations and seminars on teaching computer literacy. In
attendance were individuals of all ages listening to Greg and
associ ates, Maria Trozzi and Judy Fields, discuss how to use computers
and how to teach how to use computers.

iieir exhibition was based on their experiences teaching computer
literacy in the Boston Public Schools and at Northeastern University.

Other exhibits at the celebration were involved with this field as
well. The very popular booth operated by our group’s machine language
subgroup was the scene of almost constant attention by attendees
interested in the more advanced aspects of computer use (see this sub
group’s highlights on page 11).

ed. notes Will insists that the
rules of this game are self-
explanatory, we'll see.

HIDDEN MAZE
at -f or the

TS ± OOO/ 1 SOO
submitted by Will Stackman

Comments:

This game is adapted from Bill
L. Behrendt’s "Maze", from "30
Games", Micro Text Publications,
NY 1993.

The program is a good example of
Sinclair's ability to handle
strings in a unique and flexible
way.

For IK machines, remove title
and replay routines. Reduce
variable names, and enter
initial values for MOVE, SCORE,

X , and Y and reduce maze itself
to 8 lines.

Line 40 - RAND can take a
"seed" . This formula gives good
results with this string <M$ (M) )
array.

Lines 90-180 These graphic
strings can be modified to make
the maze harder (if not
impossible). Line 40 may also
need to be changed.

Improvements might include
inverting maze field, use grey
graphics and white spaces in M*
strings. The field could be as
large as 18x32.

WS

THE NEW TS 1 500 ROM
by Dave Wood

The ROM in the new TS1500 is
slightly different from that in
the old TS100. Sixty-one bytes
have been changed at the
following hex addresses!

0002-0004 | 0006; 0362; 03C6-
0401? 16BC? 1SD0.

9997 jp 255 ±PEE
98 THEN STOP

00000(3000

OOOOOOQOO

ooooooooo

OOQOOOOOO

ooooooooo

ooooooooo

ooooooooo

OOOOROOOO

ooooooooo

ooooooooo

The changes i ntroduced are

1) Different power-up
initialization.

2) Fix of the reknowned LPRINT
bug (see May— June newsletters)

3) Fix of an obscure bug in
the least significant bit in
division (see last month)

Two procedural changes are
introduced in initialization.
First, because the TS1300 is
configured with 16K RAM, there
is no check of the amount of
RAM. It is assumed to be 16K,
and all 16K is cleared to
zeroes. Second, in order to
provide for cartridge power -up ,
the contents of memory location
2000h (8192 decimal ) is checked.

If it contains a 1, then a
jump is made to 8192i

03DA LD HL, 2000h
DEC (HL)

JR NZ, 03E2h
JP (HL)

03E2

This 1 atter process could be

disasterous if you have RAM at
8192 and it contains a 1. On
the other hand this is a handy
way to bypass the system ROM at
power-up .

Another possibly si gn i f i cant
change is that memory locations
407B/C hex ( 1 6507 dec.), which
used to contai n zeroes (unused)
are now loaded with the address
of the front of BASIC (407Dh »
16509d )

The Boston Computer Society

F’O X NTERS

by Jacob Diamond

Q: What is a self-
running program and how can I
make my programs self running?

A: Self-running programs
are just what they say, programs
that, after you’ve loaded them
from tape automati cal 1 y "run".
You don’t need to type the
command "run" to get started.

The main advantage to this type
of thing is that it that it
helps to protect any variables
that have been loaded for use in
the program. Because the T/S
computers will erase these
variables if the program is
started with the command "run"
self-running will help avoid the
problem. Self running programs
also present a more attractive
and "user friendly" package for
a pgm. The user needs only to
follow the directions, that can
appear on the screen, to use a
pgm.

You can make your program self
running by including, near the
end of the 1 i sting, the lines
9000 SAVE "program name" 9010
GOTO 1 . Then you save the
program by starting the recorder
as usual and then typing,
instead of SAVE, GOTO 9000. When
you load this program back into
the computer later, the machine
will pick up with line 9010 and
keep running.

Send your questions about any
aspect of personal computing to:
POINTERS, S-T Newsletter, P0 Box
526, Cambridge, MA 02238.

QO

oo

HIGHLIGHTS continued

and renewing your BCS
membership: current BCS members
can renew until the first of the
year for $20, after that $24.

Dick Forsythe gave a very
interesting presentation on tape
recorder maintenance and Will
Stackman gave a presentation and
review of the Tiny Logo
language, see his article in
this issue.

The main event of the evening
was a presentation by Di cl
Govatski of Memotech , Inc. He
spoke about their line of TS/ZX
peripherals and their commitment
to "continue to support our TS
customers. Over 35, 000 of them,"
even though they have "no plans
to add onto the TS line." He did
say though they may release some
new software on eprom (
cartri dges) .

SUHHINS LJF=-
THE X S O O
by Cliff Danielson

Since the introduction of the
TS1500, I’ve been busy trying to
determine the differences
between it and the ZX81 (TS1000)
. Well, recently I’ve completed
a checksum of all the bytes in
the TS1500 ROM. If you check
past newsletters, you will find
that the checksum for the ZX81
ROM is 855106. The sum for the
new computer is 854417, i.e.,

689 less than that of the ’81.

In order to achieve this lower
total, Timex reduced the number
of bits set (bits equal to one)
by thirty (62 bytes have been
changed). Do you think this
might have something to do with
the low price of the new
machine?

® ° o !•=: F< e v i e m

CONVERTING TO

"T I MEX S I NCI _ AIR

I C

by Stuart L. Bird
review by Will Stackman

It you have looked longingly at
the volumes of listings
published -for other BASICs which
accumulating in our public
libraries, or if you have racked
your brain converting from
extended BASIC for the TRS-80,
tor example, into Sinclair
BASIC, get this book and
rejoice.

A bit of study will allow you to
simulate commands and functions
not included in the Sinclair
instruction set by replacing
them with ingenious subroutines.

Most of these short programs
are based on manipulating
Sinclair BASIC’s amazing string
t unctions, plus the ease with
which POKEs and PEEKs can be
included in a TS BASIC program.
READ, DATA, RESTORE are of
course treated in detail, but
there are also extensive graphic
handling routines, including a
demonstration of "turtle"
graphics. You will also
d i scover some of the more
peculiar commands which have
been included in specialized
BASICS, some of which
incorporate unique programming
ideas. If you can’t find this
volume in the bookstore order it
■from Wayne Green Publishing,
Peterborough, NH 03458, $14.95 +
shipping, or call 603-924-9471.

oooo

MACHINE CODE
GROUP I— I X GHI _ I GHTS

The Machine Code subgroup
experienced a surge of growth in
November with membership
virtually doubling.

The main event of the evening
was a presentati on/di scussi on by
Dave Wood about the changes to
the operating system of the
newly released TS1500 computer.
Details of those changes can be
found in Dave’s article on
page 9.

Leader Bob Heath demonstrated
a new utility called Memory
Scope and presented his proposal
for a series of group software
projects which was dubbed
Project Dazes.

This subgroup meets on the
first Wednesday of the month at
Itek Optical in Lexington. For
details and directions call Bob
at 276-2424.

- ^ programs you need, in one package..,

FAMILY ALBUM

A mailing list..

A register for bank and tax records
A checkbook balancer
An appointment calendar
A calculator

A screen-drawing program
A bulletin board
And more1

- *V THERE1

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SERIOUS PROGRAMMERS

“MUST-HA VE“ UTILITIES
For ZX-81 and T/S 1000 Computers

FILE*SYS ftoxlbta, r*kable) »10
_ Read/Write Cassette Data Tape Files v

FILE* BASIC (Inch*** FILE-SYS function*) *,5

..Save/Merge/Erase BASIC Segments *

FILE* VARS (f*qulr«* FILE.SYS of »8ASiC) * 5
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BASIC* OLAY (pormtts tut u»« ol S4K RAM) *

. Oyerlay/Copy BASIC Segments

COPY* (dupiuitM (roWctwl ta()M) $10

Copy Standard Cassette Tapes

HEXAS* (generates relocatable code) SlO

Symbolic Hex Assembler <* basic >

LOGIC* (provides true logic function!) * c
AND, OR, XQR NOR, HAND, NOT » 5

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6 Turning Mill Road, Lexington, MA 02173

A LARGE 60 KEY TACTILE FEEL KEYBOARD
(MEASURES 10" x 4") THAT PLUGS INTO THE SAME
CONNECTORS AS EXISTING KEYBOARD ON YOUR
2X81 OR TIMEX SINCLAIR 1000. IT HAS ALL
SILKSCREENED LEGENDS IN 3 COLORS ON THE
BASE; MOLDED LEGENDS & GRAPHICS ON KEY TOPS;
8 AUTOMATIC SHIFT KEYS (NO SHIFTING REQUIRED)
FOR EDIT, DELETE, SINGLE & DOUBLE QUOTES,
COLON. SEMI-COLON, FUNCTION & STOP; 5' SPACE
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SUITE 75

711 SOUTHERN ARTERY
QUINCY, MA 02169

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